Appendix F:
Progress in Downsizing the Federal
Government

In January 1996, the Clinton Administration reported that the count in the number of civilian executive branch
federal employees excluding employees of the independent Postal Service had been reduced by almost 240,000 since the
Administration took office in January 1993.(1) This is the smallest federal workforce in 30 years (see Table F-1).

A variety of mechanisms have been used to accomplish this, thereby keeping the use of involuntary terminations to a
minimum. In fact, of the 239,286 person reduction, only 20,702 have been involuntarily separated. Most of the
reductions were in three categories: administrative staff (44 percent); blue collar staff (33 percent); and
engineers, scientists, or medical personnel (22 percent).

Major Trends in Staff Reductions

Thirteen of the 14 executive branch departments have reduced their employee count since President Clinton took
office in January 1993. The exception is the Department of Justice, which is hiring additional law enforcement
employees. Six cabinet agencies have had reductions of 10 percent or more. Other major agencies have experienced
relatively large cuts in percentage terms; for example, the Office of Personnel Management had reduced its staff by 38
percent, as of January 1996 (see Table F-2).

Defense civilians comprised 154,000, or 64 percent, of the reductions. To put this figure in context, note that
Defense civilians accounted for 43.2 percent of the executive branch workforce in January 1993 and 41.7 percent in
January 1996. Note too that the scale of the Defense Department is enormous compared to civilian agencies. For
example:

The Defense Logistics Agency has four times the number of employees as the entire Department of Housing and
Urban Development.

The staff at the Defense Contract Audit Agency is larger than that of the Department of Education; the Defense
Department's civilian school system has three times
the number of employees as does the Department of Education.

The Defense Finance and Accounting Service has as many employees as the
State Department.

The Defense Commissary Agency has a larger staff than the Environmental Protection Agency.

Defense employment is decreasing primarily because of the end of the Cold War; however, a large number of positions
are also being eliminated through reinvention initiatives. The civilian Defense cuts are being driven by budgetary
necessity, but the proposed reengineering efforts of the National Performance Review (NPR) have enabled the Defense
Department to downsize without impairing readiness or service delivery. Of the 110,100 positions that Defense
eliminated in fiscal years 1994 and 1995, over 12,000 were in occupational areas targeted specifically by NPR for
reduction:

Another 5,000 positions in these occupational areas are expected to be eliminated in the next two years.

Staff Reductions
Based on Doing Things Better With Less

Thousands of positions on the civilian side of the government have been eliminated because of reinvention's new
ways of doing things better with less:

Overall, agencies have reduced the number of supervisors by 20 percent 54,000.

The Department of Agriculture has eliminated 14,954 positions by reducing its agencies from 43 to 30 and
consolidating or eliminating 1,200 obsolete county-level field offices.

The Department of the Interior has decreased its staff by 9,400 positions by reducing its support staff and
eliminating entire organizations such as the Office of Territorial and International Affairs and the Bureau of Mines.

The Department of Health and Human Services, including the Social Security Administration, has reduced its
staff by 7,259 positions by eliminating an entire layer of management, by consolidating personnel and support
functions, and through other streamlining measures.

The General Services Administration has eliminated 4,839 positions by streamlining its real estate and
procurement functions.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has reduced its staff by 3,795 positions.

The Office of Personnel Management reduced its staff by nearly 45 percent 2,616 employees in part by
privatizing its training and investigations functions